Fear Is a Prison to Developers
Fear keeps developers in the comfort zone and stop themselves progressing
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“Your fears are a kind of prison that confines you within a limited range of action. The less you fear, the more power you will have and the more fully you will live.” — Robert Greene, The 50th Law
Fear is a self-infliction restriction that stops you from pushing yourself and your career forward as a developer. Fear is an emotion that works beyond logic. Developers need to feel the fear and do the task, anyway.
One common fear is to not try something new and stick with what you know and are comfortable with. Fear focuses on being afraid of a potential future, a fear of the dark. This is a fear of the light and a fear of taking opportunities.
Avoiding danger, new technology, roles, companies keeps a developer safe and comfortable in the short term. In the long term, this can create problems with a lack of progress and new skills learnt.
To be successful as a developer, embrace fear and move out of your comfort zone and the only person who can do this is the developer themselves.
You cannot overcome fear by thinking, talking, or learning.
The only way to overcome fear is through action and facing a new challenge
The effective of fear
Fear for developers is the unknown
When I think of my early career as a junior developer, the first thing I think of was fear. To be a junior developer is to live a life of fear
- A fear of getting stuck
- A fear of looking stupid
- A fear of being outed as an imposter
- Fear of leaving technology you are comfortable with to a technology you have no or little experience using
Fear is the future and is based on ignorance. We fear techology we don’t understand because at some point a developer has tried something new and got stuck.
